317

It’s ironic in a sense because in earlier chapters I wrote about not just Iran-Contra but the fact that this scandal was actually part of a larger potential scandal-there was the credible allegation that the Reagan campaign colluded with the Iranian government in 1980 to rig that election by delaying the release of the hostages. 

I knew in doing so I was making what is already a very controversial and combative book even more so. Indeed, there was this faint prudent voice in me that asked if I should really go down this rabbit hole. Yes, the overarching theory of this book is that the modern-post New Deal-GOP is so partisan and Machiavellian that it’s willing to win elections by any means necessary up to and including betraying the interests of this country for short term political advantage.

That the GOP didn’t learn to collude with a hostile foreign power in 2016 but in 1968 with Nixon convincing Thieu to rebuff LBJ’s overtures for piece in Vietnam. Beyond that you have other Presidential elections that the GOP cheated to win without involving a hostile foreign power, Watergate-the first one; this being Watergate 2.0-Bush v. Gore 2000; indeed, it has emerged since I begun this marathon of a book-perhaps dossier is the correct word? It is longer than the Mueller Report is reputed to be-300 to 400 pages though I’m skeptical this is accurate.

I mean is the entire report 400 pages-which based on the vastness of the material simply reported on publicly by the media would seem to cover well over 400 pages or is it just the redacted part? Former Frank Figluzzi, the former Assistant Director for Counterintelligence at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, stated on MSNBC that the report may be up to 50% to 70% redacted-I wonder what his conjecture is based on: presumably sources still at the Bureau?

But it has emerged since I started this book that even the 1988 election was rigged-Bush Sr and Lee Atwater set up Gary Hart-turns out he didn’t even know Donna Rice, yet another honeytrap a la Anthony Weiner-for how Gary Hart was setup see Chapter A.

FN: Yes, Anthony Weiner was setup! Though you’d be forgiven for not knowing this if you only listen to MSM sources-which is why you can’t rely solely on MSM sources as much as they try to marginalize anyone not part of the Chuck Todd-Kasie Hunt-Chris Cillizza-Ken Dilanian both sides do it club. I regretfully note that as Katy Tur has risen in the ranks-which is deserved on merit-she has become more and more both sides do it-rather than let’s just get the story right forget about ‘balance’ and ‘narratives.’

So there was more than enough historical documentation for my assertion of the nefariousness of the Modern GOP-it’s willingness to use any means necessary to achieve minority rule-the not so Grand Ole Party made the conscious decision post New Deal to rather than accept that the majority of Americans supported the New Deal and making some adjustments-as conservative parties in other Western democracies had done-to as William F. Buckley put it stand athwart history and yell ‘stop!’ 

That is to say the GOP chose to become not just a conservative party but a genuine party of reaction-with the goal of turning the clock back to the 19th century. They have fought this reactionary crusade with great ruthlessness where literally any crime is acceptable if it is helpful politically-Trump said he could kill someone on 5th Avenue-that’s true if the jury were Republicans. A jury of elected Republicans will look the other way for any crime in the cause of turning the clock back on the New Deal.

As you can see there are plenty of examples without Reagan-Iran 1980. Why go there as it remains such a controversial conjecture? 

I mean it’s now a well established fact that Nixon committed treason-sold out the interests of America just to win an election

This Was Treason. Nixon Did It.

Don’t sweep it under the rug.

With the appearance of Haldeman’s diary no one doubts it-unlike Reagan, few other than Roger Stone and Pat Buchanan-two of the main co-conspirators in the rigging of the 1972 election through the actions of CREEP as we cover in Chapter B-have any interest in defending Tricky Dick.

But Reagan-Reagan remains worshipped by large swathes of the public. Indeed, since Trump’s ‘election’ Democrats have been the ones who talk the most about Reagan-to shame the GOP with the contrast. For about 20 years the GOP talked about nothing but the Sainted Reagan and his alleged greatness and magnificence. But with the rise of the Tea Party that changed-Reagan hasn’t been repudiated certainly but they don’t have much interest in evoking his name anymore.

So why pick on Reagan? Because like that old African American saying puts it-only the truth hurts. And the truth is the notion that Iran-Contra as just part of a much larger conspiracy that begun with such treasonous actions-was well predicated enough to lead to three distinct Congressional investigations/task forces. 

And it turns with all the Watergate comparisons out the Iranian collusion scandal is pretty relevant today after all

“With all the scandals bursting around Trump and the White House these days, with FBI and Congressional investigations into possible crimes committed by the President’s men, many pundits and commentators are making the obvious comparisons with Richard Nixon’s Watergate Scandal.”

“Yet, besides Watergate, there’s another very striking historical parallel in our not-to-distance past, and it’s another comparison that it would be good for us to review as well.”

Correct because it’s a cautionary tale.

“With the astonishing timing of the release of the hostages coinciding with Reagan’s inauguration, fears and suspicions began to arise that members of Reagan’s campaign team had conspired with Iran to delay the release of the hostages to prevent Carter’s “October Surprise”and that Reagan had rewarded Iran with weapons and by the release of Iranian monetary assets.”

“Yet the suspicions of an election-manipulating conspiracy, although credible, were without evidence and unsubstantiated – at first. These were the days back in the early 1980s – before the internet and social media – a time when mainstream media didn’t feel emboldened to challenge the establishment: it denied the scandalous claims of sabotage. Only left-wing journalists and followers of the right-wing extremist Lyndon LaRouche believed the conspiracy theory about Reagan and Iran. Even the July 1981 crash of a cargo-plane carrying US arms en route from Israel to Iran was not enough to set off alarm bells in the corporate offices of the major press outlets.”

“One scandal that did emerge from the 1980 presidential election was “Debategate”. A minor ripple politically, it was based on allegations that the Reagan campaign had surreptitiously been leaked Carter’s briefing material used for a debate, prior to it. The result was an investigation by a House of Representatives Sub-committee, and after a review of Reagan campaign documents, it found documentary evidence of the “October Surprise” – the concerted monitoring effort by the Reagan campaign of Carter’s plans to resolve the hostage situation, which the subcommittee detailed in its 1984 report.”

“However for half a decade, mainstream pundits and press considered the conspiracy claims as unworthy allegations – they didn’t use the term then – but as “fake news”. Bottom line, there was no public investigation, no public acknowledgement of any such scandal. Not yet at least.”

The same MSM who brushed off ‘Debategate’ took Watergate seriously enough that the Clinton WH felt compelled to make the fateful decision of appointing Ken Starr-Hillary was the one dissenter and as usual Hillary was right.

In any case, with the emergence of Iran-Contra-a subset of the larger Iranian Collusion scandal-as was the July 1981 crash-the question would be resuscitated.

“Then a new scandal involving the White House did break in 1986. It was the Iran-Contra affair and it engulfed the Reagan administration as it exposed the U.S. government’s secret deal with the Iranian government crafted in 1985 to quietly sell Iran missiles and weapons. The monies exchanged were laundered and used by Reagan & Co. to covertly support the Nicaraguan Contras, a violation of formal US policies.”

“Investigations into these new allegations involving the Contras, Iran and the CIA suddenly made all those earlier claims of the Reagan-Iran scandal, the October Surprise, all the more plausible. Renewed interest in the possible subversion of the 1980 election spurred new Congressional and journalistic investigations.”

“Progressive media like The Nation, In These Times and some mainstream press began doing their own digging. They began substantiating some of the details of the conspirators. An example of one good summary was detailed in a 1987 article in Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.”

“In 1991, PBS’ Frontline published a report that laid out a strong case that top Reagan people had made a secret deal with Khomeini’s agents during the 1980 election campaign to hold onto the hostages and help defeat Carter, in exchange for arms shipments.”

“Also in 1991, The New York Times ran an editorial by Gary Sick, a retired Naval Captain, who served on Ford’s, Carter’s, and Reagan’s National Security Council, entitled The Election Story of the Decade where he confirmed by his own extensive investigation that in October 1980 the Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign made the secret deal with Iran.”

But there’s no happy ending here-like with Watergate, this is a cautionary tale, for us as we wait for Barr’s possibly highly redacted report tomorrow morning-released just before the Easter holiday.

“As evidence grew of the October Surprise, an array of magazines jumped into the fray to de-ligitimize the conspiracy claims of a Reagan-Iran deal. Newsweek, the Village Voice and the New Republic all carried articles supposedly debunking Gary Sick’s investigation and the findings of others who supported the scandalous and explosive revelations.”

“Pressure built to get to the bottom of what happened and both the Senate and the House formed committees to look into the claims. But the anti-conspiracy hit pieces did their work, and over a few years period, they flooded the landscape and provided the establishment narrative that all these allegations were simply hogwash. By the early 1990s, both houses of Congress had finalized their separate inquiries and concluded that the allegations lacked supporting documentation.”

“The debunkers won – even though they too were debunked – but the debunkers were able to manufacture the conventional wisdom on the subject. The hit pieces – deliberate psudo-journalistic tactics – early renditions of fake news – were intentionally driven to undercut any doubts of the 1980 presidential election and the legitimacy of Ronald Reagan. As one commentator observed about one of the hit pieces –”

“[it] remained out on the market long enough to succeed in its goal of smearing one of the great journalism scoops of the past few decades, scaring away everyone from Congressmen to journalists from seriously pursuing it any further.”

“As media watchdog FAIR wrote back in 1993:

Sadly, such tactics have had their intended effect on the conventional wisdom. The October Surprise is now a laughable non-story, and a deep chill blows over any press investigation of recent covert history. …

The result, as Frontline investigative journalist Bob Parry wrote, “scared the Senate into backing away from a full-scale October Surprise investigation and the House acted as if it would only go through the motions before clearing Reagan and Bush.”

“But fortunately, we also have former Iranian President Bani-Sadr’s statement:

“It is now very clear that there were two separate agreements, one the official agreement with Carter in Algeria, the other, a secret agreement with another party, which, it is now apparent, was Reagan.”

“They made a deal with Reagan that the hostages should not be released until after Reagan became president. So, then in return, Reagan would give them arms. We have published documents which show that US arms were shipped, via Israel, in March, about 2 months after Reagan became president.”

Jimmy Carter himself commented on this in 1988:

In 1988, in response to a magazine article recounting the Reagan-Iran scandal, former President Jimmy Carter himself said:

“We have had reports since late summer of 1980 about Reagan campaign officials dealing with Iranians concerning delayed release of the American hostages. I chose to ignore the reports.

Later, as you know, former Iranian president Bani-Sadr gave several interviews stating that such an agreement was made involving Bud McFarlane, George Bush and perhaps Bill Casey.

By this time, the elections were over and the results could not be changed. I have never tried to obtain any evidence about these allegations but have trusted that investigations and historical records would someday let the truth be known.”

Some called it treason when they realized what Reagan had accomplished in 1980. His agents had secretly colluded with a foreign nation to sabotage the US government and to manipulate an American presidential election in his favor.

So Carter did the same thing LBJ did in 1968-looked the other way. Actually worse-LBJ knew it but decided to sit on it after Nixon’s ‘win’-in the mistake belief that the country was better with an illegitimate ‘President’ than the truth. Carter simply buried his head in the sand. In this sense, while it’s clear President Obama didn’t do enough prior to the 2016 election he did a lot more than LBJ and Carter. At least Obama let the public know what had happened after the election-though before was when it would have really helped.

As I cover in Chapter C a big part of what happened is that the MSM decided they were bored with Irangate-not just the truly explosive story of Reagan-Iran collusion but even Iran-Contra. It’s the usual dishonest ‘savvy’ refrain: Wah we’re bored. We have fatigue. 

Kasie Hunt stated the night of Barr’s fake letter-prior to it’s fake exoneration

that ‘a lot of folks have fatigue with Mueller’ and that told me right away we were in trouble-the MSM had decided that the truth doesn’t matter anymore as ‘we’re bored, we have fatigue.’ And this is what happened with Iranian Collusion and even Iran-Contra-‘we have fatigue.’

When the MSM decides that what matters is not the facts but its’ own ‘fatigue’ you know they are up to no good. As noted in Chapter D, this was the canard in 2014 regarding Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Chuck Todd was prescient:

The Media Are Suffering From ‘Hillary Fatigue’

But it’s really their journalism that’s tired.”

It certainly is-there are few things more tired and tiresome than the MSM’s narratives which have recently taken a clear turn for the worse.

The MSM actually has given Trump very good coverage recently-they’ve gone very far in normalizing him. They’ve basically accepted the GOP co-conspirator apologetics that after all Trump is fine and perfectly normal-his style is just a little different-sure we all wish he’d tweet a little less but that’s him and he was elected…

But here’s the problem-while their journalism is tired it’s also very dangerous-they elected Trump in 2016-the Comey Letter was the proximate cause but the CL only had this impact because of the Savvy weaponization of  what the WaPo editorial page would admit in September 2016-way too late, had it been September 2015 it would have mattered-was a minor email scandal.

But then the MSM never has any sense of proportion-they saw Whitewater as a bigger scandal than Reagan stealing Carter’s debate book to say nothing of Iran-Contra and the possibility of Iranian Collusion with the Reagan campaign

They decided that they had fatigue on all matters Irangate-including even looking at Iran Contra in isolation and that any reporting on it was merely engaging in ‘conspiracy theories’ and that was the end of it.

Now when I discussed this fact in Chapter A I had left on something of an optimistic note-after all it would be hard to bury Trump-Russia like they buried Reagan-Iran. But I’ve since realized that even I was too optimistic. Judging by the response to the Barr Letter the chance that this Trump-Russia could be buried is a very real possibility.

No question that Trump and Barr got exactly the headline they dreamed of from Dean Paquet and Friends in Round One.

Amazing but NYT Executive Editor Paquet has learned nothing in two and a half years.

At least the fact that this is not Bill Barr’s first coverup seems to be seeping into the MSM-a little. But it’s not clear it’s really sinking in. Some cable shows had Ryan Goodman on but not clear they really are taking Goodman’s history lesson to heart.

This lesson is that Barr refused to let Congress see a report on the investigation into Bush Sr’s claim that the FBI had the power to arrest the leader of a foreign country-Manuel Noriega.

“On Friday the thirteenth October 1989, by happenstance the same day as the “Black Friday” market crash, news leaked of a legal memo authored by William Barr. He was then serving as head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). It is highly uncommon for any OLC memo to make headlines. This one did because it was issued in “unusual secrecy” and concluded that the FBI could forcibly abduct people in other countries without the consent of the foreign state. The headline also noted the implication of the legal opinion at that moment in time. It appeared to pave the way for abducting Panama’s leader, Gen. Manuel Noriega.”

Members of Congress asked to see the full legal opinion. Barr refused, but said he would provide an account that “summarizes the principal conclusions.” Sound familiar? In March 2019, when Attorney General Barr was handed Robert Mueller’s final report, he wrote that he would “summarize the principal conclusions” of the special counsel’s report for the public.

“When Barr withheld the full OLC opinion in 1989 and said to trust his summary of the principal conclusions, Yale law school professor Harold Koh wrote that Barr’s position was “particularly egregious.” Congress also had no appetite for Barr’s stance, and eventually issued a subpoena to successfully wrench the full OLC opinion out of the Department.”

“What’s different from that struggle and the current struggle over the Mueller report is that we know how the one in 1989 eventually turned out.”

“When the OLC opinion was finally made public long after Barr left office, it was clear that Barr’s summary had failed to fully disclose the opinion’s principal conclusions. It is better to think of Barr’s summary as a redacted version of the full OLC opinion. That’s because the “summary” took the form of 13 pages of written testimony. The document was replete with quotations from court cases, legal citations, and the language of the OLC opinion itself. Despite its highly detailed analysis, this 13-page version omitted some of the most consequential and incendiary conclusions from the actual opinion. And there was evidently no justifiable reason for having withheld those parts from Congress or the public.”

All of which underscores how absurd it is that so many insist on giving Barr the benefit of the doubt. I mean there’s no excuse to have any trust for him at this point. Both his history around  the OLC memo as well as the pardons for the Iran Contra co-conspirators in the middle of Sr’s reelect and his conduct today starting with the 18 page memo he sent to Trump declaring the investigation into obstruction of justice fatally misconceived culminating with his summary that he objects to being called a summary but that is eerily reminiscent of what he did with OLC.

There is no good reason to trust Bill Barr and a GOP ‘institutionalist’ is a contradiction in terms. Just Security asks the question that occurs to nobody in the MSM: what has Bill Barr done to earn the benefit of the doubt?

The answer is the same as what war is good for-absolutely nothing. 

Yet the conventional wisdom is that he has this great integrity. Based on what exactly? They never furnish a single example to substantiate their praise.

But it’s even worse than all of this. As Goodman documents when the full repot did come out it showed that Barr’s full summary failed to disclose full conclusions. This should-but doesn’t seem to be-make the MSM reassess it’s Ken Dilanian moment:

The entire MSM the first three days trumpeted Trump’s total vindication no less than Trump himself did. As documented in Chapter A even Ari Melber-who is supposed to be a legal expert-kept repeating that the big story was the topline conclusions that Trump was found not guilty of conspiracy with the Russian government-many MSMers confused that very parsed judgment with the idea that ‘no evidence of collusion was found’-Melber certainly should know better than that.

But as Barr mislead in 1989 not just in terms of omission-in ‘no conspiracy with the Russian government’ he lacked the courage even to give us the first half of the sentence–but commission: his 1989 summary didn’t include all the conclusions. This is something that has occurred to me but none of the allegedly serious journalists and legal experts-that maybe there were other conclusions Barr chose to omit.

So the MSM should retroactively admit that they may have totally gotten it wrong-and we won’t know until we see the full report. But is there any reason to hope they are doing this?

Yesterday the MSM narrative for the day was rather irksome-all the GOP co conspirators are worried if Trump sees what they told Mueller!

Every single MSNBC show led with this rather sterile narrative accept Rachel Maddow-which is yet another reason Rachel Maddow rules

In fairness Brian Willams led with it but at least was able to a larger conversation about the coming redacted Mueller Report. It’s not a terrible story in and of itself perhaps but why is it the only angle around the coming report that interests the Savvy? Is the point we’re somehow supposed to feel sorry for Sean Spicer and Friends?

Unlike the rest of the MSM Maddow’s theory is to ignore what they say-Trump and his GOP co-conspirators-and she’s 100% right. I mean they are liars so why is anything they say of much interest? For all we know this narrative is part of their latest strategy to control the narrative. It’s amazing how even now the MSM treats them all as if their innocent till proven guilty-the opposite of the Clintons where now you have the NYTimes lying to and misleading Neera Tanden’s mother to put out yet another anti Clinton hit piece.

Have you no decency? Certainly not Ken Vogel and Dean Paquet of the NY Times. Shame on the NY Times.

In any case the Iran-Contra-Iranian Collusion precedent clearly shows justice isn’t always done. Watergate is reassuring because democracy worked but it didn’t with Iran-Contra. The GOP with the help of the MSM effectively killed of a very legitimate line of inquiry-in exchange for a very illegitimate one-Vince Foster and Whitewater.

We will see what Barr releases tomorrow but I sure hope the Democrats are ready for the fight to set the narrative. I’ve said it elsewhere in this book the Democrats’ problem is the truth is on their side. This seems paradoxical but the trouble is they think the truth is enough-but to paraphrase Nietzsche the truth is something passive. 

The Dems often don’t get that they can’t simply ignore table pounding even if they have the facts. The GOP doesn’t have the truth on its side and knows it and so they have become very skilled at table pounding and theatrics.

The Democrats need to be ready-and I just don’t know what to expect. The GOP narrative is already fairly clear-whatever is in the report it’s that this is old shit-we already know he’s exonerated-the MSM himself said so.

The MSM has already strongly hinted that their inclination is to harken the Post Mueller Era-something they’ve wanted for a long time-as if they’r e desires-to avoid fatigue-should Trump-pun intended-the facts. But reading Katty Kay how do you deny that the MSM itself created FAKE NEWS long before Donald Trump darkened politics with his Birther slander?

Notice that even though it wasn’t the Dems it was the Mueller investigators Katty Kay simply glossed over this-what are facts when we have fatigue?

The GOP narrative is simple enough:

Nobody has more at stake than Trump and his inner circle of family members, aides, loyalists and defenders. They’ve already seen some of their former colleagues face criminal charges and jail time from the Mueller probe. With the report’s arrival, they know that any page could still contain a ticking bomb, one that could open the door to more legal scrutiny or kneecap the president politically as he mounts his reelection campaign. But the document might also have exculpatory material that would help Trump push back with his narrative that the whole probe has been a “witch hunt.”

Above all, Team Trump will need to respond. So inside the president’s world, the attention will be focused on digesting the material, and quickly.

Jay Sekulow, Trump’s media-savvy personal lawyer, said he’ll have a team of five to six people in place, each assigned a key section to read in parallel. The goal is preparing the quickest possible response to blast out to reporters—as well as to brief him and Rudy Giuliani as they fan out to talk more at length in media interviews. If it were just one analyst reading, he said, “we’d be talking to you the next day”—far too late for crisis management.”

We already have the verdict-this is all because the Democrats don’t like it. 

Again, it’s going to be hard for the MSM not to fall for this as: it’s basically the same narrative as Dilanian/KattyKay/ChuckTodd et. al. The verdict is in:

No if you’re wondering I don’t think I can link to Dilanian too many times. They ought to put this on his tombstone.

Ben Wittes has some good advice for the MSM on how not to screw up again on the Mueller Report:

“Back in February, writing with Susan Hennessey and Mikhaila Fogel, we laid out “Four Principles for Reading the Mueller Report.” The report was then still vapor, a document whose preparation was widely hypothesized by most analysts and in some form required by regulation. Its expected arrival at the Justice Department had been reported by a number of news outlets, but about its content, no solid information was available. While we were still self-consciously behind the veil of ignorance about what Special Counsel Robert Mueller had concluded, it seemed like a good time to lay out some ground rules for how to read it fairly. Our proposals were simple:

  • People should be prepared to accept Mueller’s prosecutorial judgments, we argued.
  • They should accept the factual record described in the report.
  • They should not assume the report covers more than it, in fact, conveys—there being a lot of legal questions about President Trump’s behavior that lie outside the scope of the Mueller investigation.
  • Nonprosecution decisions do not necessarily resolve questions of morality, ethics or impeachability—in other words, the judgments of history, journalism and Congress are not determined by whether Mueller finds the president’s conduct indictably criminal.

“When we made these suggestions, we were candidly not anticipating what turned out to be an important intervening event: the release of Attorney General William Barr’s letter describing the top-line prosecutorial judgments Mueller had reached without releasing any of the underlying factual or analytic work product. The lag between the Barr letter and the still-impending release of the report itself has been a period in which the press has no capacity to apply the principles we laid out—or any others—because it has no capacity to read the document at all. Yet it is nonetheless awash in an aggressive spin campaign by the president and his allies as to what Mueller supposedly found, and an aggressive push as well from congressional Democrats to focus on procedural demands for the report’s release. Lost in the shadow boxing of this period is, well, the report itself.”

The MSM utterly bombed on bullet points three but especially four. As for one the problem is we haven’t seen them yet-what we did see were a few sentence fragments. As for two-again we simply haven’t seen it so it doesn’t yet apply.

So their advice was very good,

Still Wittes’ blind spot is his desire to trust  the Coverup Attorney General Barr. This is the trouble with institutionalists like Wittes-they presume all the boys in their club simply must be swell fellows-after all they’re in his club!

Like the lawyers say asked and answered asked and answered. 

In truth and in fact as we shown, the record couldn’t be more clear that a GOP institutionalist s mostly a contradiction in terms-Barr’s OLG letter, his pardoning of Casper Weinberger and the five other Iran-Contra co-conspirators during Bush Sr’s reelect, Bush V. Gore, the Comey Letter, and the Barr Letter. The prosecution rests.

Although he did criticize Barr recently-which was clearly painful for Wittes to do.

He argues the MSM has a do over-now let’s not screw it up again.

“First, focus on what the report actually says. It is far less important to give your pithy account of what Mueller did—that, in your words, he “cleared” the president or that “he gave a devastating account” of Trump’s or his campaign’s conduct—than it is to report what Mueller actually said. Report what facts Mueller found. Report what prosecutorial judgments he made. Report how he described his analysis of the facts against the law. Don’t impose onto the substantive reporting of the document some political meta-story that goes beyond the four corners of the report. Your first job here is to tell readers what Mueller did and concluded in 400 pages of text.”

“This certainly would be very welcome. What I’ve noticed lately is that the MSM doesn’t let the latest Trump bombshell breath anymore before straight away going to his tweet and the  GOP co-conspirator talking points handwaving it all a way. While seeking out their response is understandable maybe don’t give the first dibs?”

“Second, the idea that the big story is the contents of the report has an important corollary: The big story, at least initially, is not how people are reacting to the report. Unless you’re a congressional reporter or analyst, it makes little sense to focus on how congressional Democrats are reacting to the document’s release or even whether Congress will take this as an invitation to begin impeachment proceedings. Likewise, it’s also premature to zero in first thing on how the report will affect the race for president in 2020. Do not rush to get reaction from commentators or members of Congress who plainly will not have read or digested the document yet. Do not let the story or stories Mueller tells get overtaken by the many spins that will vie to overtake it.”

“Third, accept that there could be more than one story to tell about the report’s contents. There may be several—and they may cut in very different directions. Barr’s initial letter flags at least two largely distinct inquiries, noting that Mueller examined possible conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government and also examined possible obstruction of justice by the president. But even within these areas, particularly the Russia prong, there are almost certainly important subsidiary threads, and the merits of these threads might be very different from one another. It’s perfectly possible that the report will “totally clear the President” on some points and describe deeply disturbing conclusions and new facts on others.”

“Fourth, this also means that the press should be careful not to confuse prosecutorial judgment with facts. This was a huge problem at the time of the original Barr letter. A decision not to prosecute someone provides important information about whether a prosecutor believes that a federal offense has been committed and the admissible evidence of that offense is “sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction,” as our colleague Paul Rosenzweig has detailed. A 400-page report will contain plenty of other information beyond the top-line conclusion, however. That additional material does not erase the overarching prosecutorial judgment, but neither does the prosecutorial judgment erase whatever additional material the report sets out. The press, in other words, would do well to keep as separate as possible the task of explaining Mueller’s prosecutorial judgment from the task of analyzing and describing the factual record he found.”

“Fifth, an important corollary to the previous point is that the decision not to prosecute a person for some alleged conduct is not a historical judgment that the conduct didn’t happen. The absence of a conspiracy indictment may mean there was “no collusion,” but it may not mean that. It may mean, rather, that the specific form of “collusion” (whatever that means) doesn’t happen to violate the law or that the evidence of misconduct, while compelling, is insufficient for a criminal case. And even if it does mean “no collusion,” it doesn’t erase the factual record that we already know to exist. The Trump Tower meeting still happened, after all; and the Trump Tower Moscow effort still went on, and Michael Cohen still lied about it.”

“Sixth and relatedly, keep in mind that the decision not to prosecute someone based on the factual record does not end the analysis of that record. It just ends the prosecutorial analysis. Mueller’s job as a prosecutor was to investigate and reach decisions about whether or not to bring cases based on that evidence (which is exactly why his apparent decision to hold back on reaching a conclusion as to evidence of obstruction has caused many former prosecutors to scratch their heads). But indictability is not the only legitimate standard of evaluation. It may be perfectly appropriate for Mueller to decline a case and yet for observers to conclude that the conduct at issue merits the opprobrium of all decent people. Congress and the public have a different set of responsibilities. With the evidence Mueller has obtained on the table, it will now be for Congress to decide whether and how the report suggests new avenues for oversight or legislation or even if it merits the beginning of impeachment proceedings. It will also be for the public to determine whether the conduct described on the part of the president and those around him is befitting of the office of the president. These are not prosecutorial judgments, and the declination of prosecutions does not answer them.”

Certainly one can only hope the MSM manages to digest any of this-skepticism is not only understandable it’s totally called for.

UPDATE: Certainly Andre Mitchell isn’t reading Ben Wittes-she has clearly decided this is already over. What you see is typical MSM spin: she suggests ‘the American people have moved on’ but in truth the MSM wants to move on there’s no evidence the American people have fact moved on.

As for me, you know I’m locked and loaded. I have to say that among the insider types Politico interviewed on how they plan to digest the-redacted-Mueller Report I have to admit that GOP co-conspirator Michael Caputo’s strategy is pretty sound:

“Michael Caputo, a longtime Trump associate and early 2016 campaign adviser, wasn’t so blasé about it and said he has a reading strategy in place: He’ll start first with the executive summary—assuming there is one—to see how it matches with Barr’s “CliffsNotes” version of the memo, issued last month. Then he plans to go to the collusion section, since that was the main issue he found himself questioned on, before turning to the portion dealing with obstruction.”

“Caputo’s version of “the Washington read” will be to scan the index for specific top Trump aides he knows and who have been central to the entire investigation, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, longtime Trump associate Roger Stone and former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.”

“I’ll also read the George Papadopoulos section just to see how much it differs from his book, ‘Deep State Target,’” he said of the Trump campaign adviser who served two weeks in prison last year for lying to the FBI. “And I’ll probably poke around looking for traces of myself, but I don’t expect to see my name much at all.”

Whatever it says I’d be shocked if the Coffee Boy’s book comes of looking like anything more creative fiction which he’s shown himself to be very skilled at-like the baseless claim Mifsud is a Clinton supporter and Clinton Foundation donor.

Caputo said he’ll read every word. “I mean, they took the time to read all of my emails and texts, so it’s the least I can do,” he said.

In terms of tactics, several Democrats said they planned to handle the deluge of information with the quintessential 2019 reading experience: using two or even three screens. Former Obama White House speechwriter David Litt will have Twitter open while he’s making his way through the report, watching in particular for posts from several of the more prominent legal and analytical voices who have narrated the story’s plot twists as it evolved: Ken White (@popehat), Mimi Rocah (@Mimirocah1), Renato Mariotti (@Renato_Mariotti), Marcy Wheeler (@emptywheel), Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) “for the definitive word on special-counsel regs” and Nate Silver and FiveThirtyEight “to think through the political implications.” “Basically I’m assembling my own panel, except there’s no yelling, thoughtful argument, and zero chance of Kellyanne Conway showing up,” Litt said.

“Similarly, Ann Lewis, a former Clinton White House communications director, said she would begin by reading “carefully from the beginning.”

“But, candidly, I recognize that some very smart people will have begun highlighting what they find most important—so I will probably read with the full text on one computer and another open to tweets and summaries,” she added.

“One open question for political insiders is how much to rely on news coverage. Don Goldberg, a former Clinton White House communications aide who handled investigations for that scandal-plagued Democratic administration, plans to read the news first: “I think reporters who have been covering this from the start will be far more attuned to what’s important and how it relates to other court filings, reporter articles, congressional activities, etc., and also be more sensitive to what’s new. That will be my shortcut, and I may read through it in full after I digest POLITICO’s coverage.”

I have to say I find Goldberg’s strategy quite disconcerting-give the MSM the final, authoritative word? That’s how we got here

 

 

A Clintonite there for Whitewater, Ken Starr, Vince Foster… not to mention Comeygate-see Dean Paquet’s NYT’s above-wants to put his hope and trust in the Clinton hating MSM?

Thankfully some Clintonites get it:

“On the opposite side is Julian Epstein, a former House Judiciary Committee chief counsel for Democrats during the Clinton impeachment saga, who has found the media coverage so far more of a red herring than a useful guide to what matters. “Given how badly the pundits and chattering class misread the Mueller investigation, despite clear signs that caution was warranted,” he said, “I can’t imagine anyone will be able to meaningfully add to the debate without carefully reading the entire report with all its nuances—cover to cover, starting with Page 1.”

So we have GOPer-and co-conspirator-Michael Caputo and  Clintonite veteran of the Ken Starr wars with the best strategy-read the whole thing-though also drink in analysis. Ok you won’t be able to read the whole thing the first night-if you can then there are way too many redactions. But over time I certainly plan to read every word-of the redacted version for now-and the whole report in the future-Congressman Swalwell has solemnly vowed to make sure Americans get to ‘read every word’ of the MR.

I like former Clinton WH press secretary Joe Lockart’s strategy best.

And then there’s Joe Lockhart, the former Clinton White House press secretary whose ideal strategy for the Mueller report rollout turns it into more of a This Town tailgate party. “I plan to take my lawn chair and a cooler of beer and read at the end of Ken Starr’s driveway,” he wrote in an email.

Lockhart clearly wins the week.

But the main point is the Democrats have to be ready to set the narrative this time rather than react to it-like usual.

If only more of them were like Chairman Schiff.

I love Kamala Harris but I do have friendly advice for her.

I mean at this point she’s spoken about it hardly at all-no doubt the brilliant advice of the Democratic consultants who think that treason is a bad issue for the party who didn’t commit treason.

 

 

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